How to Set Up Goal Tracking in Google Analytics 4

Setting up goal tracking (now called 'Conversions' in Google Analytics 4) is the difference between guessing if your marketing works and knowing exactly which campaigns are putting money in the till. Without this, your website is just a digital brochure; with it, it’s a measurable sales machine.

In this guide, we’re going to walk through how to set up tracking for the things that actually matter to a Brisbane business—like phone clicks, contact form submissions, and quote requests.

Why this matters for your business

If you’re spending money on Google Ads or time on SEO, you need to know if that traffic is actually doing something. Tracking goals allows you to see which Brisbane suburbs your best leads come from, which pages make people want to call you, and where people are dropping off in your sales funnel.

Prerequisites: What you’ll need before we start

Before we dive into the dashboard, make sure you have the following ready:

• A GA4 Property: You must have Google Analytics 4 installed on your site. (If you’re still on the old 'Universal Analytics', it stopped working in mid-2023, so it's time to upgrade!)
• Editor or Administrator Access: You’ll need permission to change settings in the Admin panel.
• A 'Thank You' Page (Optional but recommended): Ideally, when someone fills out a form, they are redirected to a page like yourbusiness.com.au/thank-you. This makes tracking much easier.
• Google Tag Manager (Optional): While not strictly required for basic goals, it makes tracking things like button clicks much easier. We’ll focus on the GA4 interface for this guide.

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Step 1: Understand the GA4 "Everything is an Event" Logic

Here is where Google usually loses people. In the old version of Analytics, we had different categories like 'Events' and 'Goals'. In GA4, everything is an Event.

A page view is an event. A scroll is an event. A click is an event.

To track a "Goal," you first have to make sure the event exists, and then you simply toggle a switch to tell Google, "Hey, this specific event is a Conversion."

Step 2: Navigate to the Admin Panel

Open up your Google Analytics account.

• Look at the bottom left-hand corner of your screen. You’ll see a small cog icon labeled Admin. Click that.
• You’ll see two columns (or one if you're on a smaller screen). Look for the column labeled Property Settings.
• Click on Data Display and then select Events.

Step 3: Create a New Event for Your "Thank You" Page

If your website sends users to a specific page after they contact you, this is the most reliable way to track a lead.

• In the Events screen, click the blue button that says Create event.
• Click Create again on the next screen.
• Custom event name: Type something clear like generate_lead_contact_form. Use underscores instead of spaces—Google prefers it that way.
• Matching conditions: This is where we tell Google when to fire this event.

Step 4: Test Your New Event (The "Don't Skip This" Step)

Google Analytics can take up to 24 hours to show data in your regular reports, which is incredibly frustrating when you're trying to get work done. To see if it's working right now, use the DebugView.

• In the Admin menu, under Data Display, click DebugView.
• Open your website in a new tab and navigate to your 'Thank You' page.
• Come back to GA4. You should see a little blue circle pop up on the timeline with your new event name: generate_lead_contact_form.

Step 5: Mark Your Event as a Conversion

Now that the event is created, we need to tell Google it’s important.

• Go back to Admin > Data Display > Events.
• Find your new event (generate_lead_contact_form) in the list.
• Toggle the switch under Mark as conversion to ON.

Step 6: Tracking "Click to Call" (The Brisbane Tradie Special)

For many local Australian businesses, like plumbers or lawyers, the most important goal is a phone call. Since people often click the phone number on their mobile, we want to track that.

This is slightly more advanced and usually requires Google Tag Manager (GTM).

• In GTM, create a new Tag.
• Tag Type: Google Analytics: GA4 Event.
• Event Name: phone_call_click.
• Trigger: Create a new trigger for Just Cinks where the Click URL contains tel:.

Once this is published, the event phone_call_click will start appearing in your GA4. Follow Step 5 to mark it as a conversion.

Step 7: Setting Up Enhanced Measurement

Google has a built-in feature that tries to track things automatically. It’s not perfect, but it’s a great safety net.

• Go to Admin > Data Collection and Modification > Data Streams.
• Click on your website stream.
• Under Enhanced measurement, make sure the toggle is ON.
• Click the cog icon. Ensure 'Form interactions' is enabled.

Step 8: Linking to Google Ads

If you're running Ads, you don't want to manually track conversions in two places.

• Go to Admin > Product Links > Google Ads Links.
• Link your account.
• Import your GA4 conversions into Google Ads.

This allows Google's AI to see exactly which keywords are leading to phone calls or form fills, which helps it spend your budget more effectively on people likely to convert in the Brisbane market.

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Troubleshooting Common Issues

• Check your date range. GA4 often defaults to 'Last 28 days' but excludes today's data.
• Ensure your Google Tag is actually firing on every page. Use the Google Tag Assistant browser extension to verify.

• Some website builders (like Wix or certain WordPress plugins) use 'AJAX' to submit forms. This means the page doesn't refresh, and Google's automatic tracking often misses it. In this case, you'll need to set up a custom event trigger in Google Tag Manager.

• Yes, it will. UA used 'Sessions' while GA4 uses 'Users' and 'Events'. Don't try to match the numbers perfectly; focus on the trends instead.

Pro Tips for Australian Business Owners

• Exclude your own IP address: You don't want your own staff's test form submissions messing up your data. Go to Data Streams > Configure Tag Settings > Define Internal Traffic to filter out your office IP.
• Currency Settings: Make sure your property is set to AUD - Australian Dollar. It sounds simple, but it's a pain to change later and affects how your 'Value' reports look.
• Check your Timezone: Ensure it's set to (GMT+10:00) Brisbane. If it's set to US time, your 'conversions by hour' report will be completely useless for local scheduling.

Next Steps

Now that your goals are tracked, the next step is to actually look at the reports! Go to Reports > Engagement > Conversions to see which channels (Social, Search, Email) are driving the most value.

If this all feels a bit like trying to learn a second language, don't sweat it. Google Analytics is notoriously clunky. If you'd rather focus on running your business and want a Brisbane expert to handle the technical side, we’re here to help.